Moses (or was it Charlton Heston?) said to keep holy the Sabbath. In “Sunday Morning,” poet Wallace Stevens said, essentially, to enjoy your coffee and donut on the day after Saturday — because who’s to say that stuffing your face isn’t as spiritual an experience as going to Mass and mindlessly reciting cant. HearSay stopped going to church a long time ago. The whole idea of waking up at, like, 10:30 just to pray with a bunch of other people made HearSay’s soul sad. (Why can’t we pray alone? Why can’t we pray after 3pm?!?) Transcending this mortal coil via chocolate angels sounded like a much better way to spend a Sunday. And HearSay’s been worshiping at the altar of St. Krispy Kreme ever since.

Then, after your columnist wipes its mouth free of powdered sugar, it’s on to the bar. A trip to 7th Haven this past weekend actually found HearSay attaining something like bliss.

The reason was this new outfit of incredibly young, incredibly skinny men called Tiebreaker. Assembled from parts of My Spacecoaster and Evelynn, Tiebreaker will rock you like, well, if not a hurricane than at least a tropical depression. The sound is emo or emocore or whatever the hell you wanna call really moody, really deeply felt, really un-ironic distortion-less guitar rock. Vocalist/guitarist John LaMonica, from My Spacecoaster, is the mastermind behind the project — he writes all the songs and is by far the focal point of the performances (and is actually a not-half-bad guitarist, which is surprising for someone so young and emo). The band has one e.p. under its collectively skinny belt, produced by Valve’s Casey Diiorio, and LaMonica says Tiebreaker will record another e.p. soon, hopefully with Diiorio at the helm again. You can catch the band every Sunday at 7th Haven, and if every Sunday is like last Sunday, which was packed, then 7th Haven could be a holy place for music lovers.

Rising and sinking in intensity, a Tiebreaker show in 7th Haven’s cozy confines could be perceived as “spiritual” — in the sense that spirits will rise at the thought of another non-sucky new act in town. HearSay will reserve final judgment on the band until after your columnist figures out what the hell Tiebreaker’s songs are all about, but after one listen HearSay will say that if you think Stephen Malkmus’ tortured artist shtick is cool and you like tunes with more time-signature changes than a Rush set, you’ll dig Tiebreaker. Amen.

Rednecked

HearSay heard fantastic music on stage at the 15th annual Larry Joe Taylor Texas Music Festival last weekend, but lamented the campground madness. Thievery and brawls, which rarely occurred in previous years, are now common. The festival’s charm is gone, officially killed by a massive, drunken crowd that eschews campfire singalongs in favor of riding around in trucks, blasting horns, and yelling, “Fuck You, We’re From Texas,” unaware that Ray Wylie Hubbard meant that as irony, not dogma.